


They Did Live by Watchfires

by Eastling (Annwyd)



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: #BuckyNat Week, #BuckyNatMiniBang, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Apocalypse, Battle Scenes, Dinosaurs, F/M, Flirting, Literary References & Allusions, Mini Big Bang Challenge, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Female Character, Post-Apocalypse, Robots, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annwyd/pseuds/Eastling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bucky Barnes starts having visions of disaster befalling the Earth, he returns home to warn the Avengers, only to find that he's too late. The world has become a desolate mess, and somehow, in all of this, the only other survivor he can find is Natasha Romanoff. The two of them journey across the ruins of New York City—now plagued by hungry dinosaurs and marauding robots—to reach Stark Tower and learn more about what has happened to the world so that they can fix it. That should be easy enough for people like them, but emotions—and Natasha's own treacherous memories—might get in the way...</p>
<p>
  <i>A story of dinosaur battles and post-apocalyptic companionship containing minor poetry and major robots. Mostly compliant to comics canon. Takes place sometime after Black Widow #8.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Did Live by Watchfires

This was not her stop.

Natasha knew something had gone very wrong the moment she climbed up the stairs from the subway and stepped into the cool air above. Just about anyone else might have assumed that they'd missed their stop, or something had gone wrong with the trains, or maybe even that someone had changed the signs. She knew better than that. Nothing normal ever went wrong with her life.

She stepped out of the way of other people heading down the street and studied her surroundings. _Prospect Park and 15th Street._ Not only was this not the subway line she'd been on, it wasn't even the right borough. She closed her eyes for just long enough to clear her head. Shutting out the world for any longer than that would probably be dangerous.

In the momentary darkness, she felt an alarming awareness at the back of her brain. Something nearby was counting down; something else was about to go wrong. Natasha opened her eyes again and reached into her pocket for her phone. She wasn't sure who to call first. If someone was specifically messing with _her_ , she should tell Isaiah to feed the cat before she set off to deal with them. If this was bigger than that, she needed to contact S.H.I.E.L.D. to let them know what was happening. Not that she had much idea what that was.

And if she made the wrong decision? Either she missed out on getting the help necessary to avert a potentially world-spanning threat, or she revealed her own vulnerability to other human beings. Either way, the stakes were too high for comfort.

It took her three seconds to reach a decision. She decided, and she opened the autodial menu. That was when the ground lurched hard beneath her feet.

She should have known the timing wouldn't be kind to her. That was all she could think for a moment, as she grabbed the post of a streetlight to stay upright, as the world dimmed around her. Thunder rumbled and something mechanical roared overhead. Then the ground stilled, and silence fell once more.

It took a fraction of a second for her head to clear so her vision stopped swimming. In that tiny instant, she took in a few things. The air around her was heavy with a humidity that clung to her skin in a strange mix of oppressive heat and uneasy chill; she could faintly smell ash or soot; and at the very edge of her hearing, something clicked and whirred. There were no cries or screams.

Natasha blinked, straightened up, and looked around.

All around her, the streets of Brooklyn lay in half-crumbled ruins as if shaken and shattered. Windows were cracked and glazed over with ashen grime; doors hung open on rusted hinges. Half-hearted plant growth crawled up walls and emerged from cracks, but it was all slightly withered and pale.

The light was strange—not dark enough to be night, but dimmed by heavy cloud cover. She looked up at the sky. Charcoal-colored clouds blocked out the sun.

All the people who'd walked past her a minute ago were gone. There were cars here and there lining the sides of the street, but they were empty and slightly rusted. The city was deserted by human beings. As far as she could tell by sight alone, it was deserted by everything else as well, but although she could barely make them out, she couldn't discount those faint mechanical noises.

Natasha considered her phone again. Too late. _No service._ But that was about what she had expected at this point. She put it away again. Unless she remembered wrong (and she never remembered wrong), there was a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse three blocks west of this stop. That would be as good a place as any to check first, now that it was clear enough this wasn't just about her.

It might have been only three blocks, but she didn't know what she was going to find on the way. She took out her gauntlets and put them on. There was no point in looking like a civilian now.

She made her way down the sidewalk, moving cautiously, keeping an eye out for anything out of place. After a few moments, she paused to listen. A few rustles nearby in the withered undergrowth caught her attention, but whatever was responsible was small, and it wasn't showing itself. More importantly, the sound of machines nearby was now loud enough to make out properly. Natasha stepped into the shadows under the awning of a ruined shop and picked her way more carefully forward.

She got some sort of answer a moment later, as she caught sight of a narrow turret peeking out between two buildings across the street from her. Unlike all the ruins surrounding it, the machine itself was new and functional; it whirred softly as it turned the camera atop it from side to side. She had a feeling she didn't want to let it see her. It might have been paranoia, but she didn't care to test that. So she stayed in the shadows as she crept along the street, moving only when the camera was turned away from her.

She'd almost made it to the other end of the block when the machine's watchful eye abruptly swiveled upwards. Natasha tensed. A second later, a great shadow swept over the street. From her vantage point beneath a slab of tipped-over concrete, she couldn't get a good look at what it was. Fortunately, she thought it probably couldn't get a good look at her, either.

Above, a strange animal shriek cut through the skies before the creature soared off into the distance.

So something large was alive here. Natasha doubted that was good news. All the same, she had to keep going.

Even when she lost sight of the robot and its camera, she stayed in the shadows and under bits of ruined building. There was no telling when another one would appear. Ahead of her, she finally caught sight of the building that should have been the S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse—a tall warehouse next to an apartment block. It looked relatively intact, with only broken windows and a door fallen off its hinges.

And then she stopped. Outside the warehouse was something that didn't belong in this wasteland. What she'd taken to be just another forgotten, rusted vehicle was, on closer inspection, actually a clean and functional-looking motorcycle. She edged closer and confirmed something else: the door wasn't where it had originally fallen. It had been moved out of the way so someone could get inside.

Within the building, a crash suddenly echoed, and then another animal noise, this time a roar. Natasha tensed up as she moved closer—and then she stopped, remaining at a fair distance. If whoever was in there couldn't defend themselves, they probably shouldn't have been poking around in the first place.

She held onto that thought for almost a minute, as the crashing and roaring continued, before she decided to go lend her aid. She emerged from the shadows, already reaching to take out her gun.

Before she could take more than three steps, the brick face of the building around the broken door exploded outwards as the tyrannosaur came crashing through it, still roaring in predatory rage. It was wounded—a long gash gaped open just beyond its stubby right forewing, and its thin feathers were stained with blood.

In the next moment, the man responsible all but flew out of the great hole that had been rent in the front of the building, chasing down the dinosaur despite the smears of blood on his own face. The combat knife flashed in his right hand, while his left gleamed in its own right in the dim light.

Natasha relaxed before she'd even thought about it. She knew this man. He could handle a monster or two, or just about any opponent this wasteland could throw at him, for that matter. Knowing that, she took the moment instead to watch him and maybe admire his style.

The Winter Soldier ran up a pile of loose bricks and vaulted off the top of it, through the air, till he landed atop the tyrannosaur's back. Heedless of the beast's attempts to throw him off, he drove the knife into its spine, leaned forward, and wrapped his left arm around as much of its bulky neck as he could reach.

There was something about the way he fought. There had _always_ been something about the way he fought. A proper assassin engaged in battle with nothing but calculation in his movements, but the Winter Soldier wasn't like that. He attacked brutally and with phenomenal skill, and yet passion drove his every motion. She had no idea how a man who'd been through everything he had could still have so much life in his eyes when he fought, but somehow he did.

The dinosaur roared once more, then staggered. A sharp crack rang out as its neck snapped. With a last groan, it sagged, the crashed to the ground, carrying its killer down with it. He took a second to catch his breath, then jumped off the body.

Natasha took a step forward at last. Her feet crunched faintly on the debris beneath them, and the Winter Soldier quickly straightened up to face her, tensing in preparation for combat once more. Then he stopped.

Something she couldn't read flickered across his face and was gone in an instant. It was the same bothersome thing she'd seen there when he first set eyes on her in Prague. But she had no chance to comment on it—not that she'd have known what to say, anyway. "Black Widow?"

"Winter Soldier," she said. "Nice moves there. You're the first human being I've seen in three New York City blocks. I don't want to get my hopes up, but do you know what happened here?"

"I, uh..." He shook his head. "This sounds crazy, but hell, look around us. I'd been having visions of this mess for a few days now, so I came back to Earth to warn the Avengers. I was checking in here with S.H.I.E.L.D. when everything went sideways, and next thing I know, this thing's after my blood." He gestured at the dead dinosaur. "Heh. Who knew T-rexes had feathers? It's almost cute."

"That's prevailing scientific theory these days, actually," Natasha said.

"I don't keep up with paleontology," he said.

"Why were you in space in the first place?" she asked.

"That's what I do now," he said. "I protect humanity from all the big nasties that lurk out there in the cosmos."

She raised an eyebrow and looked around them at the general devastation. "What a great job you're doing."

He laughed. It was a nice sound—but was it a little edged with unease? "Yeah, well...we all screw up sometimes. It's all right. I'm going to fix it. This can't have all happened instantly—we must have been jumped forward in time somehow. That means we've got a chance to undo it before it happens, I think."

"I agree," Natasha said. "But you're making some assumptions there with that 'we.' Are you sure I'm going to work with you?"

"You want to save the world too, don't you?"

"Fair point," she said. "I do live there."

He turned to make his way to the motorcycle. "I'm going to head to Stark Tower. If anyone's still alive here, the Avengers will be there."

"Wait," Natasha said.

He paused with one hand on the bike. "What?"

"Something's surveilling the city," she said. "Machines. I doubt they're friendly. We shouldn't go roaring through town."

"Do you think we have the time to waste to go creeping over the Brooklyn Bridge and sneaking up through all of downtown Manhattan?" His words were serious, but then he grinned. "Between the two of us, I think we can take whatever they send."

"We don't know what that might be," she said. For that matter, she wasn't even sure the Brooklyn Bridge was still standing. Or that downtown Manhattan wasn't swarmed by malevolent robots.

"Life is taking risks, Nat," he said. "Even life after the end of the world."

"I don't need you to tell me that," she said, but somehow the words didn't come out as sharply as she'd thought they would. Instead, she found herself smiling. "All right. Let's go." She started for the motorcycle. "You're right, we don't have time to waste."

 

* * *

 

They rode north-northwest at a decent pace, despite the rubble-strewn and overgrown state of the streets. Here and there small unidentifiable creatures scurried by or peered at them from the withered undergrowth. More of the watchful robot sentries swiveled their glass eyes at them from alleyways as they passed, but nothing attacked. At one point, they had to detour around what might have been a sick triceratops stumbling weakly down the road, but no more predators appeared to menace them.

The oppressive atmosphere didn't lighten. It was still too warm and too dim, but despite the heavy cloud cover, no rain fell. Pools of stagnant water filled ditches and gutters; they might have been there forever. There were no other people.

The grey sky had grown deep red with sunset by the time they reached the bridge's entrance. As they turned to follow its curve across Cadman Plaza, Barnes stopped the engine and drew the motorcycle to a halt, staring at what lay ahead of them.

Natasha leaned over his shoulder to get a better look. "I'm not sure what you expected," she said.

Ahead of them, the Brooklyn Bridge stretched out over the city and then the East River. The arches and most of the cables still looked intact. But the roadway itself grew increasingly broken and fractured the further it went on. Treacherous gaps yawned open in the road between the arches, and fragments of the bridge tilted and sagged.

Barnes sighed, kicked the stand down to lock the motorcycle into place, and got off the bike. Natasha followed. "What are you thinking now?"

"I'm thinking we do it on foot," he said. "It's still our best chance of getting across the river to Manhattan."

Natasha looked up at the red sky. "And _I'm_ thinking we don't try that when it's about to get dark."

For a moment he looked like he might argue that, but instead he just said, "Fair."

"We should look around here for now," she said. "Maybe we'll even get lucky and learn something about what happened."

He nodded and made his way to the crumbling ramp heading down into the park. Natasha followed him, and the two of them picked their way down to the ground.

"Weird that it's not more overgrown," he said, looking around at the trees and other plants. It _was_ a little more wild than it would have been before disaster struck, but everything was slightly withered and discolored, as if it grew only weakly.

Natasha considered this in silence for a moment. "I wonder," she said, "if the atmosphere's been like this the whole time."

"The atmosphere? Oh, you mean the clouds like that—" He paused, thinking about it. "Well, that's one reason not a lot has grown."

She watched him as he looked around, and something occurred to her. "You're hurt," she said. What she'd taken to be the tyrannosaur's blood on his face was actually his own.

"Huh? Not really," he said. "The dinosaur knocked a shelf onto my head, but I've got a thick skull. I'll live."

"Wash it up," she said. "We don't know what's crawling through this place now, and I'm not dragging you through half the city with a fever from infection."

"I don't know," he said. "I'm pretty cute when I'm delirious."

"You're cute enough already," she said; her stomach gave an odd little jump at the friendliness of her own words. "But do you see me slinging you over my shoulder?"

He smiled. "That'd be something."

It was a little unsettling how sweet and wistful his expression was. She looked away. "Let's find some clean water and see what other supplies we can use."

They found a drugstore less than two blocks west of the park. There were other stores and restaurants even closer by that might have held something, but glittering mechanical eyes peered out from within, so they passed on by. In this one, it was dark and smelled of rot in the humid air. Still, with minimal fumbling they managed to retrieve some packaged food that hadn't spoiled, gauze and rubbing alcohol, and a case of bottled water.

"Let's get back to the park," Barnes said. "I don't think we were being watched as much there."

It was fully dark by the time they returned to Cadman Plaza. The clouds blotted out the moon and the stars. The only light came from the red glow of the robot watchers occasionally passing by in the distance. From the sounds of something large moving nearby, another dinosaur of some kind must have taken up residence in the park, but it was moving slowly and made no attempt to approach them.

As they settled back down beneath the half-ruined ramp leading up to the bridge, a small bright light came on. It took Natasha a moment to realize that her companion had clicked on a powerful penlight.

"Careful," she said. "Let's not attract another T-rex."

"How the hell did dinosaurs wind up in New York?" he asked.

She shrugged, even though she knew it had mostly been a rhetorical question. "However it happened, it's more proof that there's time travel involved here."

"Great," Barnes said. "Now we've got to keep an eye out for Kang, too. If he broke the timeline again, the Avengers had better be ready to clean it up."

"Maybe the rest of them will sort it out before we even get to Stark Tower," she said.

"You don't sound hopeful."

"I'm not," she said.

"There wouldn't be any fun in that, anyway," he said. He'd set the penlight down on a nearby rock and was trying to open a bottle of water, but it kept slipping in his hands.

She watched him in the limited light. "Something wrong?"

He scowled and shook out his left hand. "I don't know. My fine control with this thing has been a little off for a while now."

"Maybe it's the humidity," she said.

"What, you think it's gonna rust? You know it's better made than that."

"I don't know anything more about you than anyone else who watches the news, Barnes," she said. "Except that you're not dead."

"That's not what I meant," he said. "It's S.H.I.E.L.D. technology, is all." He paused. "How _did_ you know I wasn't dead?"

"Prague," she said.

"You weren't surprised to see me alive there either."

"We were in a hurry," she said. "Give me the water bottle." He handed it over and she unscrewed the top. She took out some of the gauze, wetted it, and gestured to him. "Come here."

He hesitated a moment, then crossed the few feet between them. It was too dark to see what was in his eyes in those few seconds. Natasha started to wonder why she cared, then put the thought out of her mind. Instead, she simply took his chin in one hand and leaned up to start cleaning the cuts on his face.

"Ow," he said.

"Please," she said. "I haven't even started with the rubbing alcohol yet."

He grinned; she could see that much even in this light.

He'd been right about one thing: the wounds weren't serious. Still, in this light, it took her two or three minutes to finish cleaning and disinfecting them. When she was this close to him, with her hands on his face, two or three minutes were more than enough for bad ideas to start infiltrating her head.

_What if you took longer than you needed to?_

She ignored her own thoughts.

_If you leaned a little bit closer, you could kiss him._

He was ignoring his thoughts, too. His breathing was quiet and very controlled. He was terribly handsome like this, leaning over her with serious eyes, silently trusting her. Natasha reminded herself that just because he made the mistake of trusting her didn't mean she had to reciprocate.

Two or three minutes felt like forever and not long enough.

She let go of his head. "That's good enough for now. Don't get hurt again around here."

"Hey," he said, "I'm pretty sure I came out on top in that fight."

"You usually do," she said. "We should rest. If we can get started on the bridge as soon as there's light again, that would be for the best."

He nodded. "You want the first watch? I'm a little jetlagged from space travel."

"Who knew that was a problem?" She walked over to the light where it sat on the rock and picked it up, then turned it off for now. "All right. I'll wake you up in five hours—wait."

He'd been turning to find a place to settle down, but now he looked back at her, nothing but a silhouette in the total dark. "What?"

She took off her jacket. "Catch."

He tensed up, but caught it as she tossed it. She couldn't make out his face at all, but she could tell that he was still tense. "What for?"

"It's too hot here for this anyway," she said, "and you could use a pillow."

His breathing was quiet and very controlled once more. "Thanks," he said after a long moment. He knelt down a few feet away and, after a minute, settled down in a patch of weeds against a rock.

Natasha stood and listened. His breathing eventually evened out as he lapsed into sleep, and other, stranger sounds commanded her attention instead. Small things ran and scurried nearby. Occasionally, she heard clicks and whirs and saw the red light of a machine passing by on the road beyond the park. At one point, the large creature she'd heard before seemed to be getting closer, so she turned on the penlight and swept it in that direction. What she saw was clearly a huge herbivore simply struggling to strip what leaves were left from a tree, so she turned the light off again.

Finally, she sat down near where Barnes slept. She'd meant to keep her distance, but somehow her feet took her almost to his side. She listened to his breathing and wondered what he dreamed of. Did his past still haunt him as hers haunted her? It wasn't the same, of course. She had always chosen who and what she would become, for both good and bad. He rarely had. But they both had a river of blood behind them.

_He is still a good man,_ she thought, and before she could question why she thought that when she barely knew him, her eyes slipped closed. The comfort of his presence drew her to sleep at his side.

 

* * *

 

The moment her consciousness returned, Natasha knew she'd made a mistake. It wasn't the faint light beyond her eyelids that woke her, but the soft clicking and ticking of mechanical noises getting closer. She opened her eyes, expecting the worst, and she got it.

Fanned out around her and her companion were several robots—six, at a quick count. They weren't the passive watchers of the previous day and night, but sleek, tall humanoid forms with a familiarly threatening posture that suggested a combat purpose. They were moving closer.

Natasha glanced to the side. Next to her, Barnes was awake as well. He'd been watching the robots with silent equanimity, but now he glanced over to meet her gaze.

"I don't think they're friendly," he murmured. "Want to strike first?"

"Leave one intact for interrogation," she said.

He nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready," she said.

They leapt to their feet at the same instant. She headed for the three on the left while he took the ones on the right. Natasha kept her posture loose, presenting a wide and easy target for about a second and a half. When one of the robots raised its hand to point at her chest, though, she swiftly turned to the side and let the bolt of electricity zip past her.

"My turn," she said, and in the instant the robot took to recover, she fired a charge from one of her gauntlets into the joint of its shoulder. By the time it started shaking and staggering from the energy, she'd covered the ground that initially lay between herself and it. She slammed a kick squarely at its center of gravity, knocking it into the robot behind it. The two of them went down in a heap of crackling electricity and increasingly scrambled circuits.

Behind her, a hard pulse sounded, and then the noise of the machines lessened as one of the robots shut down abruptly. That had probably been an electromagnetic pulse, which meant _that_ robot wasn't going to be answering any questions after the fight. Natasha made note of that in an instant and then turned her attention back to the third robot coming at her. As it charged, she pulled out her gun and fired a bullet at what looked like a weak spot in its neck. It lurched for a second, and she kicked its knees sharply in succession. Mechanics dented or shattered under the force of her blows, and it swayed a little before starting forward again. She was ready for it. As it approached, she fired another charge from her gauntlet, this one lesser in intensity—just enough to rob it of its coordination. It ground to a halt with an electronic gurgle.

Behind her, Barnes called out, "You got your prisoner, Nat?"

"Yeah," she said.

A crash sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see that not only was one robot lying in a motionless heap, the other two were now little more than scrap metal at the feet of the Winter Soldier.

He put on a small show of dusting off his hands, then made his way over to her side. "What do you think?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she said. "These look a little like Ultron's make, but it's hard to tell for sure."

"Well, they certainly ain't Doom-bots," he said. "They don't talk enough. Speaking of—" He gestured at the stopped robot still on its feet. "You. Tell us what's going on and maybe we won't dismantle you."

It said nothing. All it did was make another electronic gurgling noise.

Natasha waited for a moment, then said, "How about, 'Tell us what's going on and maybe we'll cooperate.'"

This time, the electronic burble sounded a little bit more like laughter. They were getting somewhere—maybe.

" _Don't_ talk," she added, "and we'll just keep breaking every one of you we come across. We're giving you a very good deal there."

The robot's voice was full of static when it spoke. Still, its words were clear enough. "Pointless. Useless."

"I don't know," Barnes said. "It would feel good."

"The defenders of humanity failed a long time ago," said the robot. "There is no longer anything you can do. There never was."

"It would feel _real_ good," he said.

"Yes," the robot agreed without apparent judgment. "You do enjoy violence."

Natasha tensed up. Beside her, Barnes did the same. "You know him?" she said.

The pause that followed went on a little too long before the robot finally said, "I know humanity and—" Its next words were too distorted to make out. But it went on, "You were never good enough to save them."

Barnes smashed it over the head with his metal arm, then kicked its body hard. The robot fell backwards and hit the ground.

"Smooth," Natasha said. "You have a temper, don't you?"

"Yeah," he said, "I—"

An earsplitting wail from the downed machine before them swallowed up the rest of his words, which was well enough, because they were quickly replaced by curses.

"It's calling for backup," he yelled. "Let's get out of here!"

He didn't need to tell her twice. Natasha bolted for the ramp leading up to the bridge, pausing only to grab her jacket and the supplies she'd tucked into its pockets. He followed, and they both dodged around cracks in the ground and rubble until they reached the causeway itself. Then they exchanged a single quick look and started running in the direction of the East River. They didn't slow until the water stretched out beneath them and the road was too fractured to risk a fast pace any longer.

By that point, the siren behind them had stopped. She glanced over her shoulder, but saw no enemies approaching. "Think they're going to follow? Maybe we shouldn't take the obvious path here."

"Do we have another option?" he asked.

"There are other bridges over the East River," she said.

"Probably in even worse shape than this one," he said.

"Even if they don't follow us onto the bridge," she said, "they'll probably be waiting on the opposite side."

"They weren't that difficult to beat," he said, but he added with a grimace, "in small numbers. There'll be more."

"It's also possible Manhattan is out of their territory," she said. "The Avengers could have control of it."

He said nothing in response to that, but his expression clouded over.

"It's nice to know we Avengers have your vote of confidence," she said, though without any rancor; she could hardly blame him for doubting.

"It's not you," he said. "But that robot didn't sound like it was on the run from anything human."

"Let's cross this bridge," she said, "and handle that one when we come to it. The Avengers headquarters are still the most likely place to have some answers."

He sighed. "All right."

They picked their way carefully across the cracked and crazed ground, jumping lightly in one place, climbing slowly in another. At one point, they clung to the railing and edged step by step forward.

"Is your grip all right?" Natasha asked.

He glanced sidelong at her. "What?"

She nodded at his left hand. "You said something was off with it, last night."

"Yeah," he said. "It's only a couple fingers. I was going to have someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. look at it—so much for that plan."

"Sorry about this morning," she said as they stepped back onto the roadway. "That was my fault."

He paused as if it took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. "That wasn't like you," he said, finally. "Falling asleep on a watch. Are you doing okay?"

"You don't know me and sleep, Barnes," she said.

He glanced away. "No. I guess I don't."

She followed him around a wide crack in the road. "I've got a question for you. Why were you so certain this bridge would be intact in the first place?"

"Was I?"

"You seemed like it."

He didn't respond at first. When he did, something about his gaze was distant, even though he kept a careful watch on the bridge ahead of him. "During the war," he said, "Cap—" He caught himself. "I mean World War II. Steve talked about New York City sometimes. I listened—he was homesick, you know? And he couldn't really show it to most people. A couple times he talked about looking out across the river to Brooklyn and seeing this bridge. How even a thousand miles from home, he knew it was gonna be standing when he got back, 'cause it had been built to be so strong. He meant it as a way of encouraging the soldiers to believe they could be strong too, of course...that's what he did. What he still does. But he was homesick."

"And you listened," she said.

"Well, yeah."

"You're a good friend," she said.

He paused. "I did what I could. I mean—yeah. I guess I was a good friend."

She wondered if he had thought she wouldn't notice the way he changed her words to the past tense, or how half-hearted his voice had been. It wasn't her place to comment on it, though. Everyone dealt with their past alone in the end, and she of all people knew that.

Her thoughts must have crept up on her too strongly, because Natasha caught her foot in a crevice in the ground and stumbled. But before she could fall, his hands were on her shoulders, catching and steadying her.

"You didn't answer my question," he said. "Are you doing okay, Natasha?"

She looked up at him, expecting to see serious concern in his eyes. But his face was carefully guarded, his expression cool and blank. For the first time, an unvoiced suspicion coalesced into words inside her head.

_What are you hiding from me, James Buchanan Barnes?_

"I'm fine," she said. "Watch your own step."

He let go of her and drew back. "You know," he said, "if we do meet the Avengers in Manhattan, you might run into your own future self. Time travel's a pain in the ass that way. You gonna be all right with that?"

She started forward again. "It won't be a problem. It wouldn't be the first time. Not even recently."

"That so?" Now he was following her.

"There was an incident not long ago," she said, "where the Time Gem appeared to Steve Rogers and played havoc with a bunch of us. It brought us to a future where Ultron had taken over—maybe even related to this one. He'd built a new set of artificial Avengers based on us."

"Did he do a good job of it?"

"The new Black Widow just wanted to survive," she said.

"So not really," he said.

She stopped and gave him a sharp look. "What?"

"You're about more than just survival," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"You can flirt when we're both on solid ground," she said, but she smiled a little as she spoke.

He laughed almost too easily. "You promise?"

"Absolutely," she said. It was impossible to hold too tightly to her suspicions and uncertainties in the face of his grin. "Come on."

 

* * *

 

It was hard to miss what waited for them at the end of the bridge in Manhattan. Even with the dark clouds blotting out so much of the light from the sun, the shape of the tyrannosaurs lurking beyond the bridge was all too clear.

"Three of them," Barnes said. "It doesn't look like they're going anywhere, either."

"That's strange," Natasha said. "You'd think they would try to attack each other. Or go look for larger prey."

"Think we can take them?" he asked.

"Probably," she said, "but it would be a rough fight. Even the smallest is bigger than the one you took down."

He gestured at the nearest supports leading down to the ground. "Looks like we're climbing down here, then. That's our best chance of avoiding them."

Natasha gave him a nod and headed for the rail. There was a break in it near the support, and withered, yellowing ivy lead down the wall. She wasn't sure she trusted it to hold her weight anymore, but fortunately, the wall itself was full of cracks for handholds. She started down, and a few moments later she heard him descending as well, more slowly.

She looked up when she reached the ground. He was still less than halfway down, moving carefully to avoid relying on his left hand when he came to places to grip. When he reached the halfway mark, though, he glanced off to the side where the trio of dinosaurs lurked a few intersections away, and he frowned. Then he looked down at the ground.

She sighed. "Don't do it, Barnes."

"Too late," he said, and he pushed off the wall and dropped heavily to the street below. He landed with a crunch and a heavy whoosh of breath.

"Idiot," she said, not without affection.

He grinned at her. "They might've heard that. Let's go." Without waiting for confirmation, he dashed forward, jumped the ledge off the roadway they'd landed on, and started north through the lots and sickly trees ahead. Natasha ran after him.

They kept going, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the waiting tyrannosaurs. Sure enough, heavy noises from behind soon confirmed that they were being followed.

"Move between buildings," Natasha called as they reached a more closely-built neighborhood. They were much faster and smaller than the dinosaurs, and right now, that was their main advantage.

He dodged into the nearest alleyway, and she kept pace. The two of them wove quickly between cracked and begrimed apartments and storefronts on the edge of Chinatown until the sound of the huge dinosaurs following them began to fade.

Then, finally, Natasha came to a halt. "All right," she said. "What's the plan?"

"The plan?"

"Yes," she said. "How are we getting to Stark Tower?"

"I thought we'd just go right up Broadway," he said. "Normally it'd only be a couple hours of walking, but—"

"So you didn't think," she said.

"Not really, no," he said.

"For a living legend," Natasha said, "you really leave me wondering how you're not dead yet."

"I usually have a partner," he said.

"Good," she said. "Someone needs to look after you." She didn't wait to see his reaction to those words. Somehow, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Instead, she moved on to the matter at hand. "Let's stick to side streets as much as possible. Move from east to west and back again to throw the watchers off our trail. Stay around buildings so we can duck inside if there are no robots. It won't be as fast as if we went up Broadway, but we're less likely to get eaten by a T-rex."

"Sounds good to me," he said. "I'd rather not be lunch. Speaking of—" He started to take some of the food they'd found out of a pouch.

"We can walk while we eat," she said.

They made it several blocks before they let themselves out of a building they'd passed through and found one of the robot sentries staring at them with its unblinking red eye. Natasha reacted immediately, kicking it in the camera to destabilize it. Barnes followed up on her moves without pausing for breath, as he grabbed the machine with both hands and flung it hard against the nearest wall, shattering its mechanics.

They stood there in silence afterwards for just a second before he said, "Do you think that was—"

The sound of very large flapping wings from outside the alley they'd been cutting through interrupted him. More followed, and then yet more. Gusts of humid air blew into the alleyway with every wingbeat.

"That's probably not good," he said.

Natasha slowly made her way out to the street as he followed, and then they stopped.

A crowd of gangly avian creatures surrounded the mouth of the alleyway. They had huge wings and very long, wickedly sharp beaks. Small thin feathers covered their bodies, but they clearly belonged to no species of bird that had walked upon or flown above the earth in a very, very long time.

"Pterosaurs," Natasha said.

"Great," Barnes said. "You think they're friendly? 'Cause there's a whole lot of them here. We could have a party."

"Keep hoping," she said. "But you didn't strike me as that much of an optimist."

"I'm not," he said, and he took out his combat knife.

She considered her gun for a moment, but decided against it: the pterosaurs' heads and necks were too narrow a target. Barnes had the right idea. She took out a knife as well.

Then there was no more time. The closest creature strode swiftly forward and swung at Natasha first with its razor-sharp beak.

She dodged to the side and drove her knife into the pterosaur's wing. It screeched and staggered in pain, and while it was so delayed, Barnes grabbed it by the long thin neck and slit its throat.

That was easy enough, but there were eight of the beasts remaining on the ground, and now the entire flock came at the two of them. Three more swooped in from above as well, talons raking.

Still, when blood flew, it belonged to the pterosaurs and not the humans who fought them.

Natasha took a step back as their winged opponents surrounded them, and she bumped up against something. It took her just an instant to realize that she'd found herself back to back with her companion. It made sense, of course, if their enemies were going to ring them like this. But when was the last time she'd fought that way?

She threw the unbidden thought out of her head. Now was no time for contemplation. Instead, she moved in harmony with Barnes as the pterosaurs came at them. They weren't tough creatures, but they were fast and their beaks were sharp, and a few kept taking flight and coming at them from the sky.

More blood splattered on the ground and against the nearest buildings. Seven pterosaurs lay in lifeless heaps around their feet, but four were still coming. Natasha braced herself to take on two of those as they came at her. A split-second too late, she realized one was missing.

"Above you—" Barnes began.

Natasha was already reacting. She dodged hard as the creature swooped down and reached out a claw to rip out her throat. Instead, its talon tore a shallow gash below her collarbone.

Barnes swore, twisted around, and grabbed the pterosaur by the edge of one enormous wing before it could ascend back into the sky. Natasha heard a series of sickening crunches as he snapped its fragile bones in two, then shoved its remains to the ground.

"I'll be fine," she snapped as she fended off another strike from a sharp beak. "Let's finish the rest of them!"

He made a short noise of agreement. It seemed like his patience with the fight was gone, because from what she could hear behind her, his style had gone from brutally efficient to merely brutal.

Natasha stabbed the last pterosaur attacking her in the eye and watched it fall. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Barnes smashing another one's head against a wall.

"Looks like we're done here," she said. "We'd better get going before more of these guys find us."

He crouched over a fallen pterosaur for a moment, studying it, then straightened up again. "You're hurt," he said.

"We'll both be hurt worse if we wait around here," she said. "Come on."

"All right," he said. "But, Natasha—"

She looked at him.

He met her gaze with almost distressing sincerity in his own. "We rest and take care of you as soon as we find a place for it."

She nodded. "Fine. Let's go."

They headed north again.

 

* * *

 

All the gentrification in the world hadn't saved Alphabet City from crumbling in the wake of disaster. Fortunately, though the rubble in the streets made for slow going, it also seemed to keep out most of the robots. Natasha and her companion only had to hide in the alleys or half-fallen storefronts a few times to avoid watchful mechanical eyes on their way through the East Village. They saw dinosaurs twice: a handful of small raptors chasing tiny shrew-like creatures through the ruins, and several more scavenging the gaunt flesh from a larger herbivore of some kind that had collapsed in the middle of a street. None of them were threats to a human being.

The intermittent sound of running water drew them to Tompkins Square Park. There, Barnes stopped for a moment, then headed directly to the source. In the middle of the remains of a children's playground, broken pipes burst from the ground, and every few seconds some water still trickled from them.

"You know there's no guarantee that's clean," Natasha began, but it was too late. He was scooping some into his right hand and testing it by drinking it.

"It's running," he said, "and it's not like there's a whole lot here to contaminate it. Let's clean up. You're hurt, and I don't feel like running around covered in dinosaur gore."

"Those things technically weren't dinosaurs," she said, but she joined him at the broken fountain and started washing dried pterosaur blood off her hands and face.

When she was done, she sat down on what was left of some plastic stairs and started bandaging the cut on her chest with fabric torn off the sleeve of her jacket. She tossed the rest of the garment aside afterwards. In this heat, it wasn't serving much use anyway.

Barnes leaned against the railing of the stairs. "How bad is it?"

"It's not deep," she said. "I'll be fine."

"You usually are," he said. She glanced up at him quickly and he smiled for a second, warm and sweet, before looking down. She followed his gaze. He was holding something in his right hand—a slim electronic chip.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

"I found it when I broke open one of the pterosaurs' heads," he said. "Want to bet the T-rexes have them too?"

"I wouldn't take that bet," she said. "This explains a lot."

He raised a brow.

"The more dangerous dinosaurs—and the pterosaurs too—are all under the robots' control," she said. "Aren't they."

He nodded. "Probably. That makes a lot more sense than them just attacking us for fun."

"There's also not a lot to eat around here," she said. "They might be starving, and the robots just nudge their brains into thinking we're the best source of food."

He didn't answer immediately. Eventually, he said, "It sounds like you feel sorry for them."

"I'm not going to let it stop me from taking them out when I need to," she said.

"I know," he said. "I didn't say you would."

She couldn't keep meeting his eyes for too long when he was saying things like that. Instead, she looked up through the leaves of the dying trees at the dark sky. "I'm not a paleontologist," she said, "but I think we've only seen species from the late Cretaceous—when dinosaurs went extinct. You know how that happened?"

"A meteor hit the earth," he said. "Killed them all."

"Not exactly," she said. "The meteor impact disrupted the environment so much they died. All the dust in the atmosphere blocked out the sun so plants couldn't grow, and the whole food chain collapsed from the bottom."

He fell silent, looking around them, then up at the clouds above. "We can't be in the past," he finally said. "New York City didn't exist millions of years ago. I mean, last time I checked."

"We might not be," she said, "but the dinosaurs probably think they're stuck in the end of their world."

He sighed. "So the timeline's a mess again. What else is new?"

"The timeline's a mess," she agreed, "robots have taken over this city and maybe the whole planet, and they're controlling the minds of hungry dinosaurs to do their dirty work. _That's_ a little new, at least."

He frowned a bit. "That robot sounded like it knew me," he muttered. Then he shook his head. "Well, it doesn't matter. We have to figure out what's going on and set things right."

She stood up and faced him. "Are you up to that, Barnes?"

He should have had some cocky reply for her, but instead he spoke quietly. "It doesn't matter if I am," he said. "It's what's got to be done."

She couldn't stop herself from meeting his eyes this time. His gaze was earnest and troubled, as clouded by doubt as the sky was by dust.

"Hey," she said. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. It was probably a bad idea, but he seemed to need the comfort. "If we're betting on the odds of some dinosaurs and their robot overlords versus the Winter Soldier...my money's on you."

He smiled a little, though there was still some strange old hurt in his eyes. "Oh, yeah? 'Cause I was thinking that when it comes to saving people, it's a good thing the Black Widow is here."

She wanted him to smile more. For an instant, the affection in her heart pulsed through her blood faster than the reason in her head could rein her in. She lifted her hand from his shoulder to his cheek, and she leaned up to kiss him.

He almost let her draw him down to meet her. His lips almost brushed hers.

Then he stepped back, lifting his hand to pull hers away from his face. "Natasha," he said quietly, tonelessly. "Sorry. You don't—" He stopped and shook his head. His eyes were all of a sudden blank and guarded again. "This isn't the time."

She took a deep breath as her good sense reasserted itself. "Of course," she said. She'd forgotten. In the face of his charm and the way he looked at her like he deserved to be saved from himself, she'd forgotten that there were still barriers between them that needed to stay intact.

"Sorry," he said again.

"Don't apologize," she said. "I was the one out of line there." But she didn't apologize herself. She just said, "Let's get going again."

 

* * *

 

The going got rough as they approached midtown. The dinosaurs they saw roamed the streets in well-organized packs, and more and more, the robot sentries appeared atop buildings and in sagging doorways. North of 34th Street, the humanoid robots began to appear even without being summoned, striding almost silently down the road. It took a great deal of doubling back and forth and sneaking through alleyways and the occasional building to avoid them all.

They finally emerged into an oasis of relative peace as they crept out of a building on 40th Street. Natasha glanced down the road, but there didn't seem to be any robots nearby. Across the street in Bryant Park, some kind of huge, low armored dinosaur attempted to gnaw the bark off a tree. She couldn't put a name to its species, but it didn't seem to be a threat.

Beside her, Barnes exhaled slowly. "All of this?" He gestured at the streets south of them, vaguely. "All the robots up here. It's the opposite of a good sign."

"I know," she said. "But it's up to us to deal with it. If they're laying siege to the Avengers, or if they've taken over the headquarters, we'd better stop them before anything worse happens."

"Anything worse..." He looked around, then laughed tiredly. "You're right, though. If there's a way to fix this, it's going to be at Stark Tower whether or not the Avengers are there too. We'd better keep going."

"Do you want to try to find some clues about what happened here?" she asked him.

"Do I ever," he said. He opened his mouth to ask a question, then stopped and followed her gaze instead.

Natasha inclined her head in the direction of the main building of the New York Public Library, at the end of the park. Its columns were cracked and its windows were shattered, but the building itself stood just fine. "That's a pretty important building, and it's _not_ swarming with robots. We might not find a book with all the answers in it...but let's have a look, all the same."

They crossed the street and made their way through the park. The grass was wild, but it was already withering. The dinosaur she'd seen before didn't even turn to look at them as they passed. It was too busy trying to find food.

As they climbed the steps to the library, Barnes reached into one of his pouches and took out first the small flashlight from the previous night, and then another. "Here." He handed the second one to her. "Somehow I don't think the computers will be working. So let's do some old-fashioned research without them."

"I'm up for it," she said.

The doors were broken, but they pushed on through them anyway into the dark and empty lobby. "Do you want to split up?" Natasha asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said.

"Me either," she said, and she caught a flicker of his smile in the dark as she turned on her light.

He turned on his and glanced around. "I'm not exactly a frequent visitor," he confessed. "Where should we look?"

She shook her head. "I'm not, either. I know the superhero exhibit was on the first floor, but that was last year...I think the main room is on the third floor."

"All right," he said. "Let's see how the stairs are holding up."

There was dust on the stairs, and several of them were cracked or loose; they had to navigate carefully up the steps. But they reached the great reading room with its shelf-lined walls and tall windows without incident.

That was the extent of their luck. The room itself was a mess. Its shelves were mostly vacant; books lay in heaps on the floor. Natasha swept her light over some and was unsurprised to see that most of them were torn and stained.

"So much for that," Barnes said. He crouched down to pick up one book, flipped through its mildewed pages for a few seconds, then dropped it again.

"It's fine," she said. "I didn't expect to find too much. I'm more interested in seeing the state of the inside of a large public building."

Still, she pushed aside a broken computer monitor from one desk to pick up the book that had been propping it up. This one looked like it was in slightly better shape than some of the others. Its pages were ragged and blurred, but not moldy.

"What is it?" Barnes asked from behind her.

"It's poetry," she said, her surprise slipping out into her voice. "Frost...oh, I see. That's not subtle." She checked another page, and then another, before finally finding one where the words were intact. "And this one is Eliot, and another." She wasn't surprised anymore. "Teasdale..." She made an annoyed noise.

"I'm not into poetry, Nat," he said. "You'll have to explain the reference."

"It's just symbolism," she said. "Poems about the end of the world."

Though her light was focused on the book, she made out the edges of his scowl. "Great," he said. "Someone's messing with us."

"Not necessarily," she said. "Survivors could have gathered here and brought whatever books reflected their state of mind...but you're probably right." She looked down at the pages she had open.

"What does it say?" he asked.

"You want to know?"

"I don't know," he said. "Sure. Maybe there's a hint."

She shook her head, but read the last stanzas of the poem aloud. "'Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly; and Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone.'"

He echoed her annoyed noise from a minute ago. "Changed my mind. I don't care."

"I thought you might feel that way," Natasha said. She closed the book and tossed it back down. "We should head back out."

"Agreed," he said, and he started for the exit.

She began to follow him, but stopped as her light swept across an intact page of an open book. Natasha knelt down to look at it more closely. There was a slightly smudged picture on it which had caught her attention, because it showed the man now walking out of the room ahead of her. Most of the text was too mildewed to read, but she made out the words _trial_ and _defense_. She flipped the book closed so she could see its cover. _The Mythos of Captain America: Past and Present._

"Natasha? You coming?"

She stood up. "I'm with you. Let's go."

The two of them made their way back down to the lobby and out the broken doors. That was where their brief interlude of respite from the robots ended.

One of the watchers was clinging with spindly metal legs to a cracked column as they emerged from the building, peering down at them with its single red eye. As soon as they walked back into the dim light outside, the sentry started to buzz frantically.

Even as they both tensed up for a fight, their enemies appeared. From atop the roof of the library, over a dozen humanoid robots jumped down to the steps in front of them. They were armed: each one bore an old submachine gun.

"What the _hell_ ," Barnes said, and then he grabbed her arm and turned to retreat back into the library. She ran right behind him without any objections.

They bolted back up the stairs without heed for safety on the cracked steps. The robots followed, their guns rattling off fire. At the top of the staircase to the second floor, Barnes turned, ripped out a chunk of the already-sagging railing, and hurled it back down at the robots before running to the third floor.

They paused in their machine gun fire as he leaned down to fling debris at them, but immediately picked it up again when he ran with Natasha at his heels once more.

"Waste of time," she said. "They're still coming."

"I know, I know," he said. "We could take them, but—"

"Others would come while we were fighting," she finished for him.

They made it into the room where they'd been before and immediately dragged desks and shelves to block the doorway. They were just in time—as soon as they had it barricaded, they heard the robots start to slam into it.

"We don't have much time," Natasha said.

Barnes was already climbing up to one of the tall windows. He put his left fist through what remained of a pane of glass, then pulled away the shards until there was enough space to go safely through. "Come on," he said, and then he ducked through the opening himself.

Natasha climbed up the shelves after him as their makeshift barricade splintered and cracked. She got to the window, pulled herself through, and prepared to climb down the building.

Below her, Barnes reached the ground. That was when the door behind her finally burst open, and the robots came through. Machine gun fire erupted around her.

She looked down at the man below. "Catch me," she said without missing a beat, and she jumped as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Natasha fell into his arms. But one or both of them had misjudged the angle of her fall just slightly, and her head slipped and knocked against the metal of his left arm.

It wasn't a hard blow. She should have been fine. Still, stars erupted behind her eyelids, and for a second, she felt dizzy.

"Dammit—" He tightened his grip on her for an instant before relaxing it and starting to set her down. "Natasha! You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, although suddenly she wasn't sure. Her thoughts felt oddly disoriented. "We don't have time to worry about that. They're going to follow us. Where do we go from here, Barnes?"

"We just have to keep moving north," he said.

"It's still more than a mile. At this rate—" She shook her head. "I have an idea." And she started east at a run, trusting him to follow.

He did. "What are you thinking?"

Actually, it had gotten a little hard to think, all of a sudden, but she shook that off. "The subway tunnels," she said.

The streets were not safe. Already, more robots had taken note of them. At least none of these had guns.

"You think that'll help?" he asked as he ran.

"We can lose them in Grand Central Station," she said, "and then follow the tunnels from there."

"It's as good a plan as any," he said. "But you're—"

"Forget it," she said, too sharply. "Let's get to Grand Central."

He didn't object any more after that.

 

* * *

 

By the time they reached Grand Central Terminal, a large tyrannosaur had joined their pursuers. This was a boon in disguise. Barnes goaded the dinosaur while Natasha distracted the robots. When the tyrannosaur attempted to charge after them through the main entrance, it broke through the already crumbling walkway above. The beautiful architecture collapsed on top of it and the robots, and in the ensuing chaos, the two human beings responsible fled towards the subway without being pursued.

They were too pragmatic to pause and worry too much over the landmark they'd just damaged, but as they headed east, Barnes stopped for just a second to turn on his little flashlight and shine it on the starry ceiling above. The plaster was dingy and cracked.

"So much for this place," he said.

"It's the people of the city we're saving," Natasha said. "Not its landmarks."

He swung the light around to illuminate their path forward instead. "I know," he said.

"It's enough to save the world," she said as they started through the marketplace to the east of the concourse, "whatever happens to its prettiest buildings."

He glanced at her, then away.

"Don't take too much on yourself again," she said.

He stopped in his tracks and looked her hard in the eyes. "Again?"

"What?"

"You said, 'Don't take too much on yourself—again,'" he repeated for her.

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I just..." She trailed off and touched her head in confusion.

He reached out and took hold of her chin with his left hand, the touch cool in contrast to the heat of the heavy air around them. Before she could protest, he was shining his light around her face and examining her eyes closely.

"I'm not concussed, Barnes," she said. "I didn't hit my head that hard, and I know what a concussion feels like. This isn't it."

He hesitated, but reluctantly let go of her face. "Something's wrong, though."

"Maybe I'm just tired," she said. "We don't have time to stop, though."

He turned to head for the subway entrance, then stopped. "I don't care," he said. He pushed open a door, already sagging on its hinges, into a small shop. "We're going to take a break until you feel more yourself again."

"We don't have time," she said again.

"I'll watch for robots," he said. "I got more sleep than you did, so it's only fair. Come on." Without waiting for any further responses, he stepped inside of the store.

She had no choice but to follow him. Dust and rot covered the overly cute accessories displayed all around them.

"Is this really an entire store for socks?" he asked.

"Welcome to the twenty-first century," she said.

"Hey," he said. "I've _been_ there for a while now. But some things you don't expect."

She gave up arguing with him on the matter of resting and just sat down against one wall. "Speaking of temporal displacement," she said, and she raised a brow.

He looked at her for a moment, and then he ventured a guess: "The weapons those robots at the library had."

She nodded. "Did you recognize them?"

"It makes no sense," he said, "but they were tommy guns. I haven't seen that many of those since the war. Where did they even _get_ them?"

Natasha thought about that last book she'd found in the reading room. She had a faint suspicion, but it was elusive and difficult to pin down, and she was having trouble thinking clearly at all at the moment. The room around her stayed still, but if she tried to focus on her companion in the illumination from their flashlights, his face started to blur faintly right before her eyes. It was as if her brain had two images of him and was trying to overlay one on the other.

"Sorry," she said at last. "I guess I do need to rest."

"Damn right you do," he said. "You're _sure_ it's not a concussion?"

"I'm sure," she said. "Maybe it's something I ate. Who knew packaged food from post-apocalyptic convenience stores was a bad idea?"

He sighed. "Fine. Then I'll let you sleep for a while and we'll head into the subway tunnels when you wake up."

She was dizzy, but she managed to speak firmly all the same. "Two hours at _most_ ," she said. "Then you wake me up and we get going again. Got it?"

"I got it," he said. "Get some rest, Natasha."

She turned off her flashlight, leaned her head on a heap of frayed socks, and closed her eyes. Unfamiliar images flashed behind them too fast for her to follow. Overwhelmed, she lapsed quickly into sleep.

 

* * *

 

In the darkness of Grand Central Station after the end of the world, Natasha dreamed fast and hard.

Images fell into her mind like coins sinking into the waters of a fountain. That was what she thought when she dreamed of a clear night in Moscow and a rainy afternoon in Paris and the man at whose side she traveled now in her arms.

_"Can you believe this crap...?" He was indignant. "One afternoon off in a whole month, and we get this?"_

_The rain around them was cool, but his body against hers was warm, and she was smiling at his closeness. "Oh, come on, you fought the Nazis, James...don't go whining about a little rain."_

It wasn't like that, though. Coins in a fountain were foreign objects. They weren't a part of its marble foundation. She dreamed of his hand taking hold of hers and pulling her close while he spoke words of earnest support, and it felt more like tiles slotting into place on a mosaic that had been missing them.

_"And if I offered myself up would you take my help?"_

_He was so close to her right now, and all she needed then and there was to be on her own. But she couldn't just shake off what he was giving her. "James—"_

_"I know you don't need me. But please, Natasha." His voice was so sincere it broke her heart along all the same lines he'd always managed to touch it. "Whatever else we are...let me be your friend."_

But her mind wasn't a puzzle. If she was missing pieces, it was because she chose with her own will to leave them behind her. So why did his warm smile lock into her memories while she slept as if it had belonged there all along?

_"Do you remember it all? Our time together, when I was young?" It surprised her a little how much the question mattered. How much she wanted him to say yes._

_"Yeah." There was anxiety and regret in his eyes, but also so much earnest warmth. "I remember everything, Natalia...and you were the one good thing in all of it."_

She woke up as sharply as a knife cut through skin. Her mind was clear; if there had been clouds over it before she slept, they had poured out their rain and dissipated now. But farther down, her chest was tight with anger and yet more alarming emotions.

Natasha was alone in the dark store. She knew that at once, and a hot and bitter thought ran through her head before she could stop it: _He left me again._ She forced herself to calm down. The door to the hallway was open, and she could see a small flicker of light outside it.

She picked up her own flashlight, put it in her pocket, and stood up. Then she took out her gun instead.

Natasha left the store and glanced down the hallway. He was standing near where it joined the Main Concourse, sweeping his light around him and looking in the direction of the caved-in entrance. She approached him in silence.

He heard her coming anyway, and he spoke as he started to turn to face her. "I think they're beginning to excavate the—" He saw her, and his words dried up.

Natasha leveled the gun at his face. "What did you do to my head?"

He looked at her and said nothing. His eyes were wide, and despite the limited light, she could see the guilt in them.

Hadn't she always seen guilt in his eyes? Hadn't she always wanted to ease it so badly?

"Answer me," she said. The command felt too short on her lips—she'd meant to end it with his name, but all of a sudden she couldn't decide what to call him.

"You're not going to shoot me," he finally said.

She flicked the safety off on her gun.

"I didn't do anything to your mind, Natasha," he said. "I didn't—" He choked a little on his words. "I didn't do anything."

"You're lying," she said. "I remember things I didn't two hours ago. A lot of things, James."

He froze up; he made a small choked noise at the back of his throat.

It took her a few seconds to realize what had prompted that reaction, and what she'd called him. Her own throat closed up.

His hands were at his sides; the light pointed down at the floor and reflected back up off it, leaving the two of them in a small golden circle surrounded by shadow. She tried not to feel too lost. "They're real," she said. "These memories."

He nodded and still said nothing.

She lowered the gun a little, but not completely. "I loved you," she said. It felt strange to put it like that. It wasn't that she'd loved him in the past. She _did_ love him. It was a natural result not just of the memories returning, but of spending two days fighting at his side, watching him smile at her while struggling against his own perceived inadequacies to save the world. She always had loved him, though the emotion had waxed and waned over the years, or even gone dark completely behind clouds in her head and heart. It had changed and faded and faltered and grown back and changed again over the years, but that didn't mean it wasn't there.

He swallowed hard. "Yeah."

"You still love me," she said.

"I," he began. Then he stopped. He shook his head, but it was a gesture of defeat and not denial. "Yes."

"Then why...?" Her anger burned so hot in her throat that it destroyed any more words she could have spoken.

He started to lift his hands. "I wasn't the one who—"

"No," she said. "I know."

"But it was because of me," he said. "I let it—it was my fault. So...I can't blame you. You've got every right to be mad at me."

She switched the safety of the gun back on. "You're an idiot," she said as she put the weapon away.

"What?"

"You're an idiot," she repeated. "I'm not angry at you because your enemy hurt me to get at you."

He shook his head again, uncomprehending.

"Why did you walk away afterwards?" she asked.

"You'd been through enough," he said. "I didn't want you hurt any more on my behalf."

"You can't keep me from getting hurt," she said. "Not with the life I live."

"Natalia," he said.

"But I chose it," she said. "I chose who I became, and I chose to love you even when it hurt."

He opened his mouth to respond to that, then closed it again, helplessly. The light wavered on the floor as his hands shook. Above them, the plaster constellations looked down without judgment.

The building rumbled. Debris rolled down around the entrance. Natasha looked away from him to glance in that direction.

"Why aren't they just coming in from one of the side entrances?" she asked.

"Easier to get a giant dinosaur in through this one, maybe," he said. "Or something worse."

"Let's get to the subway," she said.

He exhaled slowly. She thought she could almost hear the tension break, for now. "Yeah. Let's go."

She turned her back on him and started down the corridor. His footsteps assured her he was following, but she hadn't expected him to do anything else.

 

* * *

 

Below ground, they tore down some of the more damaged columns and left them in heaps in front of the turnstiles. Then they headed for the tunnels themselves.

"West," Natasha said. "Then north. They don't know for sure where we're headed, but they know we've been going north. Let's throw them off."

Her companion nodded. She found her brain shying away from calling him by name. He must have seen some of that uncertainty in her eyes, because he quickly looked away and jumped down onto the tracks.

It was a little cooler down underground, but the humidity still hovered in the air. Natasha ran her light over the tracks and wasn't surprised to see shallow puddles of water there. "We might be in luck," she said. "This doesn't look like the robots are using it."

"We can't be sure just yet," he said.

"What would you do if they were?" she asked as he shined his light down the tunnel and started walking.

"Punch them, probably," he said.

"Your skills at strategic planning need some work," she said.

He navigated around some debris. "Yeah, that's never been my strong point."

"It's a good thing you're charming," she said, "or people might stop rescuing you."

He turned around to grin at her. "That'll never happen."

Somewhere behind him, something splashed.

"I wonder _why_ the robots aren't using these tunnels," Natasha said.

The splashing got closer. He turned, flashlight in hand. In the circle of his light, a pair of low golden eyes stared back at both of them. After a moment, another appeared, and then another.

"Oh, come on," he said. "This is the subway, not the sewers. Get out of—"

The first creature tried to lunge around him at Natasha. He stopped talking and swung at it instead.

It wasn't an alligator—or a crocodile, for that matter. But it looked pretty closely related to both. As she raced to join the fight, Natasha made out a long, lethally toothy snout and a huge, heavy body. She didn't waste too much time trying to identify it, though. She was more interested in putting a knife into its eye.

They made quick work of the first three animals, but as they ran and dodged their way down the tunnels, more kept coming. The creatures' blood spilled out to join the water on the tracks or splash across the bodies of the travelers fighting them.

To Natasha, it felt more natural and right to be fighting at this man's side than most things had in a long time. She tried to push that feeling to the back of her head, but it kept creeping back on her, stealthier and more powerful than their actual opponents.

They ran across the platforms at the Times Square station, leaving bloody footprints on the grimy floors. The tunnel leading north was even more waterlogged than the one they'd used to come this way, and more and more crocodilian beasts clambered after them and snapped with long, razor-toothed jaws.

When they reached 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, Natasha caught James's shoulder and pulled him to a stop. No more creatures were attacking them for now, but she could hear more lurking further down the tunnels. "This is close enough," she said. "Let's see what things look like on the street."

"Yeah, all right," he said. "We're both enough of a mess already." He grinned. "That wasn't a fair fight, but those alligators had it coming for getting the urban legend wrong in the first place."

"They were crocodiles," she said as she started up the steps to the street.

"How could you tell?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't. Actually, I don't think they were either one."

"Whatever they were," he said, "I'm sick of 'em."

They stepped out into the fading light.

There was no brilliant sunset this time. Instead, heavy drops of rain fell from the sky, bearing the smothering scent of ash down with them. Natasha looked up, but the clouds above seemed unchanged.

"This might be good luck, too," James said. "It could be harder for them to track us in the rain."

"Right," she said. "Let's move."

But before they could take more than a few steps, thunder cracked through the skies, and the rain began to intensify. What had been droplets became streams.

Natasha stopped in the street and held her hands out, letting the water soak her and wash away all the sticky blood. It was tempting to think in metaphors then: to wish that the rain would wash away past mistakes as easily as a little gore. But that was really trite and excessively self-indulgent.

What had been streams became sheets of water. She began to blink against the torrent. When she tried to focus, she could barely see her companion through the rain. She didn't want to lose sight of him. "Change of plans," she said, although she wasn't sure if he could hear her in the roar of the water splashing against the ground. "Let's stop for a while."

He asked her something, but she couldn't make it out. So instead of aiming for any more conversation, she grabbed his hands and pulled him towards the awning of the nearest building.

"Let's go inside," she said. "We're close. We can keep going, and finish this, once the rain stops."

He looked at her face for a long moment before glancing over to the doors of Carnegie Hall before them. His eyes were still faintly lost when he met her gaze. Gone was that blank and guarded mask he'd worn over them when looking too closely at her before. He looked, instead, as human and vulnerable as he always had. "Okay," he finally said.

She let go of his left hand but kept her hold on his right as she pushed through the sagging doors. Taking her flashlight back out, she paused to examine the lobby. It was littered with debris: fallen lights and railings, bits of marble come loose from the walls. But nothing jumped out to attack them.

"Practice," she muttered. "Practice."

"What?"

"An old joke, James," she said. "Though not as old as you, I think." She let go of him and started to gather some of the larger bits of rubble and push them in front of the doors to the building. He saw what she was doing and followed suit.

When they were done building that barricade, Natasha opened the doors to the auditorium. They groaned on their hinges but let her through. Dust glittered in the air as she swept her light over the great room. Seats lay scattered around, some ripped out of the floor, some still in place but broken and torn, and a few intact. She set the light down on the most level armrest she could find and started to peel her wet clothing off her body.

"Natasha?" His voice was alarmed.

She waited until she'd finished stripping down to her underwear and the makeshift bandage on her chest, then turned to face him. "They're soaked," she said. "Did you really expect me to sit around here in that?"

He averted his gaze. "I wasn't really thinking about it."

She draped her wet clothes over a nearby seat, trying not to think of anything except the next moment, and then the next. She sat down on an armrest and carefully peeled the cloth off her wound to check it. The injury had been shallow and was already healing well enough that she set the stained scrap of fabric aside.

The air was warm enough that it didn't matter that she was nearly naked. Natasha closed her eyes for a second, then wasted another two seconds smoothing wrinkles out of her clothes where they lay.

She looked up again. "Come here," she said.

He hesitated for only an instant before approaching her. "What is it?"

There wasn't much light to see his face by, but she knew it by heart after all: the strong jaw that could set so stubbornly, the earnest dark eyes. His hair curled just slightly when it was short, and now it clung to his forehead while wet.

She reached out and started to undo the straps of his combat vest.

He took half a step back. "Mine's water-resistant."

"I know," she said.

He blinked.

She lifted her hands to cradle his chin, and before she could think to stop herself, she pulled him down into a kiss.

This time he didn't stop her. She felt him catch his breath and go still, and then he leaned into her touch. He returned the kiss, his lips hesitant on hers, and after a moment, his hands settled on her waist.

She lingered against his mouth for a few more seconds, then drew back.

"Oh," he said. Even in the faint light, she recognized the face he was making. It was the same expression that had always jumped to his face when she kissed him and he hadn't been expecting it: uncharacteristically innocent and utterly charmed, like he couldn't believe his good luck.

She smiled up at him. "James?"

"Natalia—"

"You can do better than that." And she kissed him again.

His grasp on her waist tightened a little, and this time, the hesitation faded from him within the instant.

She felt almost dizzy when she finally pulled away. Natasha gave logic and wisdom one last chance to save her from the passion and warmth he made her feel. "This is a bad idea," she said.

He half-smiled. There was still uncertainty in his eyes, but he said, "I'm really good at those." Still, he didn't move to kiss her again, and his grip relaxed slightly. She knew she could easily step away if she wanted to.

She didn't want to. "You're really good at a lot of things," she said, and she reached for his clothes again.

He didn't pull away; in fact, he helped her, undoing buckles and straps. "I thought you were mad at me," he murmured.

She kissed his cheek. "Furious," she said. "But I missed you."

"You didn't remember me," he said.

"I know," she said. "But part of me knew something was out of place. Something was missing. I just thought that was normal."

"No," he said. "You're meant to be whole."

"So you admit it," she said. "Good."

"That's not what I—"

She tossed his vest to the side and started to pull his undershirt over his head. "Stop while you're ahead," she suggested.

He laughed a little shakily in sheepish acknowledgment and dropped the shirt on the floor as he finished taking it off. She leaned against his chest, tracing a hand over his muscles and remembering every small faint scar. She paused with her fingers over his heart, finding the paler streaks of past damage and recalling: she'd nearly wept once, not even all that long ago, when he'd almost died. She still wasn't sure if it was even acceptable for her to let someone in that way in the first place, but she remembered, now, that he'd always had a way of stopping that train of thought in its tracks for her.

His hands fumbled at what was left of her own clothes. "Don't tear them," she said. "I don't have a change here."

"What," he said, "do you expect me to be convenient?" He was grinning as he did away with her underwear.

"I expect you to be decent," she said as she undid his belts and took down his pants.

"Sorry," he said, unrepentant, and he threw her bra into the aisle.

She drew him down to the seats atop her. He buried his face against the crook of her neck, and she held him there, breathing in the scent of rain and dust and sweat on him. Her heartbeat quickened without asking anyone's permission first.

When he kissed her throat, the gesture was gentle, still a little tentative, but as he trailed his lips down her body the restraint and hesitation bled out of him. The ready passion that replaced them was warmly familiar. She didn't let go of his face, but she let him draw away until he knelt in front of her, head bowed between her legs.

That was familiar too, but still she was barely ready for the touch of his tongue, for the way he held her fast as he filled his mouth with her. She ran her fingers through his damp hair, rubbed a thumb along the rough unshaven line of his jaw, and took in everything she could about his touch.

Her own restraint fragmented soon enough; her pleased gasps and small moans echoed in the huge room. She braced her hands on his shoulders, against his neck, and she arched her body hard against the motions of his mouth. Behind her, the seat cracked with the pressure, its back falling against the previous row. Natasha almost fell back with it, but she was clinging too fiercely to the man on his knees before her.

He paused. "We wrecked something," he murmured. If he'd been trying to sound upset about it, he failed completely. His voice was altogether too pleased.

"No one will notice," she said. "Let's take advantage while we can."

He leaned over her again, pushing her down on the broken seat. "You sure? There's a big world out there waiting to be saved."

His words were light, but she caught a glimmer of uncertainty at the back of his eyes. She let him bear her down, one hand warm and the other cool on her hips. "I know," she said. "We can save it tomorrow. Tonight—"

Tonight, she didn't know how long she'd be able to keep these memories. She didn't know how long she'd be able to keep _him_ this time. "It's been a while," she said.

He caught his breath. "You've been alone," he said.

"Not completely," she said, quite honestly, but her chest felt tight and she was afraid he could tell from her voice.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For leaving you."

She pressed a hand to his cheek. "So give me tonight, James."

He kissed her by way of answer, open-mouthed and without reserve.

When she pulled him to her this time, she didn't stop until their bodies joined, and then she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him as close as either of them could bear. He shivered against her despite all the warmth, and she kept kissing him.

Across the room, the stage stayed empty and perfectly dark. There was no performance here tonight.

 

* * *

 

Nothing disturbed them throughout the night. Their makeshift barricade over the main entrance stayed intact, and no enemies crept up through the windows or side doors.

By the time Natasha woke up, the sound of the rain pouring down outside had diminished to faint patters and intermittent splashes as small things ran through or fell into puddles. In the great auditorium, it was still quite dark, so she spent a moment fumbling around for her flashlight.

The nearest intact seat creaked as someone sat down in it, and James turned on his own light. "Here," he said, and he handed her the underwear they'd discarded the previous night. He had his pants and boots back on himself, but was still shirtless.

"Thank you," she said.

"They weren't easy to find," he said.

"I meant for keeping your shirt off," she said, "so I had a nice sight to wake up to."

He grinned and ducked his head to kiss her. She leaned against him for a few seconds and briefly flirted with the idea of pretending they were somewhere normal: back in the apartment they'd shared when he was Captain America, perhaps, about to have breakfast before a day of dealing with Avengers business. But that was entirely too fanciful for her taste, and besides, dwelling on the past was dangerous for someone like her. So she straightened up again and started getting dressed.

"The rain's almost stopped," he said as he pulled his undershirt over his head. "We should get going as soon as possible."

"I want to see if we can get a look at Stark Tower from the terrace," Natasha said. "That should give us an idea of who has control over it."

He picked up his vest. "Let's get up there, then."

They finished the last of the unspoiled food they'd found as they picked their way up what was left of the stairs to the rooftop garden. Whatever awaited them at the headquarters of the Avengers would determine just what they needed to do from here, so there was no point in holding back with their supplies.

The wide and tall windows in the upper levels of the building were a cracked mess. Panes and shards of glass lay on the floor. Natasha stepped around them and out onto the terrace. It had been green with grass and trees once, but they were yellowed and fading now. The rain had done nothing to liven them up, only left puddles that further weakened and destabilized the rooftop underfoot.

Natasha navigated around a series of cracks and dangerous-looking depressions to reach the edge of the terrace. Then she pushed aside a tangle of dead branches to look northwest.

Stark Tower rose high above the surrounding buildings less than two blocks away. It looked less damaged than everything else, but given the technology that had gone into constructing it, that was no surprise. She thought she could make out lights in the windows near the top of the building, but she couldn't be sure.

The crowd of robots fanning out around the streets leading up to the building wasn't a surprise either. Natasha watched them in silence for a minute, trying to figure out if they were coming from Stark Tower or going to it, but it was impossible to tell from here.

"We're not going to be able to sneak around them," James said from beside her. She glanced over at him as he lifted his gaze to Stark Tower itself and continued, "We should—" And he stopped.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The landing pad," he said, his expression suddenly blank and puzzled, and he pointed.

She narrowed her eyes into the distance. There was a vehicle of some kind on top of the building where he was indicating: something silver and sleek. "A plane?"

"A spaceship," he said. "Not just that. _My_ spaceship."

"Oh," Natasha said.

"Yeah, 'oh,'" he said. "What the hell? This doesn't make any sense."

"Could someone else be piloting it?" she asked.

He raised both hands in helpless frustration. "I don't know. Maybe. I tried to contact my partner when this all started, but she didn't respond, or I couldn't get through—I'm not sure which."

Natasha sat down in the damp grass between the dying trees and fell silent for a while as she looked over the streets ahead of them, trying to convince everything she'd seen in the past two days to make sense in her head. "It's like in the library," she said. "Someone's toying with us."

He leaned against a tree. "What for?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "Maybe to create suspicion. Make us turn on each other." He laughed at that, and she smiled for a moment before letting the expression fade. She looked up at him. "So. Where do we go from here?"

He looked back down at her with those eyes bright with boyish determination, and he grinned—it was just slightly crooked, that expression, like she remembered. "From here? We keep going. We just keep going, and we find a way to save the world."

She loved him. It hurt to feel that love inside her, all fragmented and confused but still alive. She spoke, for once, without thinking it entirely through. "You always were too good for me."

The smile on his face dimmed just a little. "No, that's not how it was. For you, Natalia...I was always exactly as good as I needed to be."

She could say nothing to deny that. Natasha reached up a hand to him, and he took it and sat down at her side. "Five minutes," she said. "Then we'll start on our way again."

He met her eyes, his gaze searching. "Do you have a plan?"

"It's pretty risky," she said. "But I've got a hunch about something."

"Do you want to tell me what it is?"

"Not yet," she said.

"Okay," he said, and he leaned his head against her shoulder.

"Once we save the world," she said, "and put things back in their proper place, I'll introduce you to Liho."

"Hold on," he said. "I haven't used my Russian in a while, but is that a threat?"

"It's a name, James," she said.

"Oh, yeah? Whose?"

"Would you believe me if I said my new boyfriend?"

"No."

She ruffled his hair. "Liho is my cat."

He blinked. "You have a pet?"

"Not exactly," she said. "How do cat lovers put it? She adopted me, so one day I finally let her in."

He laughed a little. "You're so bad at being cold, Nat."

She ignored that. "She's all black, very sleek. But I don't think she's really bad luck in the end."

"Then are you going to give her a new name?" he asked. "One that's a little less sinister."

"I don't think so," she said. "Are you going to give yourself a new name?"

"What?"

"You could have a new codename," she said. "You don't have to keep being the Winter Soldier."

He fell silent for a moment. "I get it," he said.

They sat there, quiet and thoughtful, as the last of the drizzling rain finally stopped falling. The clouds didn't part; it was still dim and full of dull dread in the ruins of the city.

At last, Natasha kissed him on the cheek and stood up. "Time to go save the world, soldier." She didn't ask him if he was ready. She knew the answer to that better than he did in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Side by side, they stepped out of the building and made their way down the street. Shallow puddles splashed around their feet, and the stale, humid heat closed in around them again as the clouds of ash and dust loomed overhead.

Natasha made no effort to hide as she walked down 57th Street towards Broadway. Before she was even halfway there, a group of humanoid robots had gathered in front of her. Behind them, from down the street, a tyrannosaur began to approach.

She took out her gun. Then she crouched to put it on the ground before her. "We surrender," she said. "I know we're the humans here, but...let's use the old cliche. Take us to your leader." She caught a glimpse, just behind her, of James glancing at her doubtfully, but he didn't say anything yet.

One of the robots made that faint electronic burbling noise that might have been laughter. "That is not your only weapon."

"It's a symbolic gesture," she said.

The tyrannosaur stopped right behind the line of robots. The one that had spoken said nothing more, only raised a hand. Electricity crackled around its fingers.

Natasha stepped behind her companion and looked over his shoulder.

The robot let its arm drop back to its side.

In front of her, James tensed up. "I'm just as much your enemy as she is!"

"No," the robot said. "You belong here. She is an anomaly."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Natasha put a hand over his. "Quiet," she said. "Think about it. How many things have actually attacked you since we got here?"

He started counting. "One, the first T-rex."

"It surprised you by knocking a shelf on you," she agreed. "Funny that it didn't try to bite off your head while you were unawares, though."

He frowned. "Two, those robots by the bridge."

"We attacked them first," she said.

"Three, the dinosaurs waiting at the end of the bridge."

"We avoided them entirely and never found out just what they would have done to us."

He continued with a stubborn set to his jaw, "The pterosaurs—"

"Attacked me first," Natasha reminded him.

"The robots with the tommy guns—"

"Stopped shooting when you were the one in their sights."

"The T-rex and the robots at Grand Central," he said. "Come on, Nat."

"You antagonized the tyrannosaur," she said, "and it's funny, but it was very easy for me to distract the robots."

He was scowling now. "The damned alligator crocodile things in the subways!"

"The first one came after me," she said, "even though you were right in front of it. And these guys," she nodded at the robots ahead of them, "still aren't attacking."

His shoulders slumped a little. "All right," he said, "what's going on?"

"I'm not sure," she said, "but I'm going to make them tell us." She looked around him to the robots. "Well?"

Another one spoke up. "This is the end of the world," it said. "This is the end of humanity. He failed to protect them."

"Not helpful," he said, gritting his teeth.

She gave his hand a squeeze before pulling hers away. "Don't let them get to you."

He exhaled slowly, staring at the line of robots down the street. For a long moment, no one said anything.

A new sound crackled in the air from around the robots. Someone was speaking—someone who wasn't present here. Natasha couldn't make out the words, but she saw the robots go alert and ready.

"She needs to be eliminated," one of the robots said in response to the distorted voice.

It spoke again, then went silent.

"Reevaluate your needs," Natasha said into the tense quiet air. Then she added, "I'm guessing that was whoever is in charge here."

"Correct," a robot said. "We'll bring you safely to Stark Tower."

"Good," Natasha said, and she knelt down to pick up her gun. Then she straightened up and started walking again.

At her side, James said quietly, "Natasha, what the hell is going on here?"

She shook her head. "You know as much as I do." That wasn't, strictly speaking, a lie, although she did have her suspicions.

He glanced sidelong at her, and she had a strong feeling he could see right through to the suspicions in question. But he just nodded. "Want me to take the lead? Just in case."

"Just in case," she agreed, and fell into step behind him.

They started the short trip to their destination in quiet, but soon enough James had to speak up. "You guys think you could explain just _how_ things got this bad? And don't say—"

"You failed to stop it," one of the robots supplied.

"That's what you weren't supposed to say," he said.

Natasha put a hand on his shoulder. "They're trying to get on your nerves."

"Trying?" He shook his head. "They're tap-dancing on my nerves at this point, Nat."

She smiled. "These things would be terrible dancers. Ignore them."

He relaxed just a little, and they approached Stark Tower. The doors slid open before them, but the lobby was dark.

"There are answers for you inside," a robot said.

"'Free candy in here,'" Natasha said. "Nice." But they didn't have much other choice at this point, so she nodded to her companion and stepped into the building at his side. She stood there for a second, trying to adjust her vision to the darkness, and then the lights came on.

The doors slid sharply closed behind them. In front of them was another row of robots, with two tyrannosaurs in the back, their feathered heads brushing the high ceiling.

"Oh, come on," James snapped.

"You were told we'd bring you safely here," a robot said. "No promises were made beyond that." One of the dinosaurs lurched forward. The robot added, "He should proceed to the elevator. She'll need to be left here."

He laughed. "Not a _chance_."

Another robot said, "You never had a problem with leaving her. Correct?"

"I—" His voice shook. She couldn't tell, in the heat of the moment, what emotions exactly had seized it. "That's not the same damn thing and if you know me well enough to say that, you know that too."

"If you're just going to let them bait you," Natasha said, "why don't we get started?" And she lifted her gun and fired off a shot at the lead tyrannosaur's eye.

Everything happened very fast after that, despite the presence of two creatures that should have been too massive to be fast. That was always how it had been: the two of them didn't need to hesitate in taking down the bad guys together.

The two of them moved too fast and too efficiently for the robots to get either of them in their sights. One robot tried to send a jolt of electricity at Natasha, but she dodged, and when it prepared to try again, she shifted position so that when she rolled out of the way this time, the shock hit one of the tyrannosaurs' legs. The beast roared and collapsed on top of several of the robots, and James was there to jump on top of it and stab it in the throat.

The robots became slightly more cautious after that, but Natasha managed to distract and enrage the remaining tyrannosaur until it crashed through a wall, and in the ensuing chaos, it was easy enough to take it down and deal with the rest of the robots.

In the aftermath, the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow were very nearly uninjured. They had a few bruises, but that was about it.

He walked through a spreading pool of dinosaur blood and stopped in front of the elevator, staring blankly at its doors. She followed and stopped at his side. "There will be answers up there," she reminded him.

"If you trust what they said," he replied, "and I'm not sure I do at this point." He turned and looked at her. "Natalia, why do they know me? You've figured it out, haven't you?"

"Not really," she said. "I just have a few guesses."

"So do I," he said. His voice didn't shake this time, but it did crack a little. "Have I snapped? Is all of this in my head?"

"Some of it, maybe," she said, "but I'm not."

He took hold of her by her shoulders. "I want to believe that," he said.

"You don't usually have a problem believing me, James," she said.

"You appeared here out of nowhere in the first place," he said. "And then you got your memories back. Isn't that a little too good to be true?"

"There's probably a catch," she agreed, "but you aren't imagining me." She touched her fingers to his cheek. "I am as real as you are."

He looked down at her, helplessly. "How do I know for sure?"

"The cat," she said.

He blinked. "What?"

"You were surprised to hear about Liho, weren't you?" she said. "Your mind wouldn't have made that up."

He blinked again, and then he laughed a little. The sound was shaky but sincere. "You're right. I wouldn't imagine you getting a pet cat."

"She's not my pet, though," Natasha still felt the need to add.

"Whatever you say," he said, smiling now. She smacked him lightly on the side of the head in retaliation, and the smile became a grin. "Are we going to go meet the bastard in charge of this place or what?"

"One moment," she said, and she leaned up and kissed him lightly. "There. _Now_ let's go."

 

* * *

 

The elevator brought them to top few floors of the building, to the headquarters of the Avengers, without being instructed. Natasha was hardly surprised at this point.

There were no lights on when they stepped out into the top floor, but the windows were cleaner than most in the grimy ruins of the city, and what little light there was outdoors filtered in through them. Across the wide open room was another robot.

It wasn't quite the same as the others they'd faced, though. Something was slightly off about its design that Natasha couldn't perfectly make out at this distance, and it was wearing familiar clothes.

Her eyes started to adjust again to the dim light. It was enough for her to pin down just what was so special about this new robot. Unlike the others, its face was almost human—and as recognizable as the clothes. There was a star she knew on the shoulder of its left arm.

James said, "What the hell are you?"

"Don't act like you need to ask," said the robot in the shape of Bucky Barnes with a voice that was almost the same as his. "Call me your better half."

He made a disgusted noise. "I don't think so."

"He doesn't really need one of those," Natasha said.

" _You_ weren't supposed to be here," the robot said.

"I'm not convenient," she agreed. "What are you really?"

It shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe I'm his insecurities? I just know that I had the power to make this world all of a sudden." It tapped its left arm, and a previously invisible panel slid open.

Inside it, an amber shape like a huge egg nestled in the mechanics. "I got hold of this," the robot said.

"What—" James began.

Natasha reached out to stop him. "That's the Time Gem," she said. "There's one part of an explanation."

"I used it to make this place," said the robot, closing up the panel again. "Isn't he better off trapped in here than trying to protect humanity?"

At her side, he tensed up, but Natasha moved first. She ran at the robot, preparing to fire off a charge from her gauntlets as soon as she was close enough.

But this one wasn't like the others they'd fought to get here. It moved too fast and too deftly. By the time she was close enough, it had already drawn a gun and fired at her, and she was busy rolling into a dodge.

"Nat, it _fights like me_ ," James was calling to her as he bolted after her, but she had no urge to stop now. She leaped at the robot as she rose back to her feet, trying to kick it in the head.

It dodged, grabbed her ankle, and slammed her down to the floor. Before she could get up again, it kicked her hard in the chest. Something cracked, and a shock of pain radiated through her body.

Natasha pushed through the pain and rolled to the side before it could catch hold of her again, then tried to kick its legs out from under it as it came after her once more. She almost succeeded this time, but it steadied itself at the last moment, grabbed her arm, lifted her, and flung her clear across the room.

She slammed into the far wall with another terrible burst of pain. More ribs fractured. Dazed, the world swinging wildly all around her, she slid to the floor.

Too far away, she heard the screeching clash of metal on metal. The real Bucky Barnes had reached the false one and attacked, but he wasn't thinking now.

Mechanical laughter followed. "Oh, just give up. This is the right place for you anyway, don't you think? A pathetic world made up of disasters and apocalypses smashed together from all across time."

"I don't give up," he said.

Natasha heard another crash as he attacked the robot again. Still dizzy, she forced herself to get to her feet and started moving along the wall.

"Maybe not," said the robot, "but you're not good at picking the right fight to be so stubborn about, are you? You just latch onto other people's. First the one Steve Rogers started, now you're taking Nick Fury's place—"

"Shut up!" He tried to grab the robot and hurl it away, but it resisted and stood firm.

Natasha circled around the tall windows as her head began to clear.

"The world won't miss you," the robot said. "It never needed _you_ in the first place."

"That's a lie," he said, but there wasn't much conviction in his voice, only raw distress and uncoordinated rage.

Natasha pulled herself up the wall behind the robot.

"You don't actually believe that," it said.  
  
"I—" He gritted his teeth and attacked again, but this time the robot just kicked him back. He staggered.

And Natasha dropped down from the ceiling on top of the robot. She landed on its shoulders. "Maybe he doesn't," she said. "But I do."

It had no words for her this time, only a startled gasp and buzz of electronics.

She slammed a knee into its head once, then twice; she punched it hard until the back of its neck started to crack to expose the mechanics within. "Of course the world needs him," she said. "He is a good man, and there aren't many like him."

Natasha jumped down and fired an electric charge from her gauntlet into the exposed wiring.

The robot shuddered and screeched and gave a distorted wail, then crashed down to the floor. It buzzed weakly once more, then fell still.

"Honestly, James," she said. "You let it get to you too easily."

He stared at her. "Natalia, I..."

She stumbled, then dropped to her knees.

He was at her side in an instant. "Natalia!"

"It might actually be a concussion this time," she confessed as she tried to stand up again. "And some broken ribs." She leaned against him and fought with her wavering consciousness until it solidified once more. She refused to pass out now.

"Dammit," he said. "We have to—how do we get out of this place?" He gestured at the windows, and his meaning was clear: not just the building, but the false reality all around them.

"The Time Gem," Natasha said. She crouched at the robot's side and carefully pried open the panel in its arm. The golden gem glimmered, but when she reached for it, her fingers passed right through. "What?"

James frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. It has to be real. What else would have given it—would have given my head the ability to mess with time and reality that way?"

Natasha closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm thinking," she said. "How did I get my memories back?"

He considered that. "I guess," he said finally, "since this place isn't real, it can make anything happen? Hey, why were you here in the first place? If the evil robot version of me didn't plan on it."

_Because I love you, and you love me,_ Natasha thought. _And you can't get yourself into this much trouble without something calling me to your side._ But she found she couldn't quite voice that just now. Instead, she said, "That's not it. Like you said, I didn't belong here, so..." She traced her recollection of the past two days back to before her memories returned, and then back before that. Then she stood up again. "James, give me your arm."

He blinked and held out his right hand to her.

"The other one," she said.

He paused and looked down at the robot at their feet, and comprehension came to him as it had to her. "Oh," he said. He held out his left arm, the metal gleaming in the faint light.

Natasha traced her fingers along it until she came to the part corresponding to where the panel opened in the robot's arm. She took out her knife, then, and slid its blade between and beneath the interlocking plates of metal until she could push one up to reveal the mechanics underneath.

Wedged between two bundles of wiring was a small amber shard, no bigger than a fingernail. It pulsed quietly and innocuously there, as if it hadn't just been responsible for a tremendous mess.

"How did that even get there?" he asked.

Natasha looked down at it, then up at his face. "I told you Steve Rogers was the last person who had the Time Gem, didn't I? I'm not surprised part of it found you afterwards. You must think of him a lot."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm sorry, Natalia."

She blinked. "What are you sorry for?"

"Dragging you into this," he said. "We both thought we were saving the world, but all you were saving was my own sorry ass."

She rolled her eyes. "You idiot."

"What?"

"I've had a feeling it was about saving you and not the world," she said, "for a while now. Since the library. That doesn't mean it ever occurred to me to stop."

He stared at her for a moment. Then he ducked his head, smiling a little, and put his right arm around her shoulders. "All right," he said. "Let's finish this."

Natasha took the knife again, slid it between the wires in his arm, and pried the shard of the Time Gem out from where it sat. As it came loose, it glittered and then dissolved into the air.

The scene around them wavered.

"Wait," he said.

"A little late for that, James," she said.

"If this world goes away—" He glanced around at their flickering surroundings. "Won't your memories of me, too?"

"The Time Gem must have taken my mind partly back to a time when I had them," she said, "so that's pretty likely."

"Then," he began, but he trailed off, looking down at her helplessly.

"But I won't forget this," she said, and she pulled him down to kiss her once again.

Natasha felt the floor shift underneath her feet, and not just because of the earlier blow to her head. She leaned into his arms, then, as everything shifted and faded and changed around them.

 

* * *

 

Light from an ordinary sky filtered down into the alleyway where they stood.

In the suddenly chill air, Natasha missed her jacket. It took her only a second to remember that she had left it in Tompkins Square Park. But where was she now?

She pulled away from the man in front of her and looked around. She blinked a few times; the pain of her cracked ribs hadn't gone away, and her head still felt out of sorts. "Where are we?" she finally asked.

He took a moment to study their surroundings as well. Then he said, "We're back in Brooklyn. We're—this is the S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse." He laughed just a little bit, almost disbelievingly. "Where I ran into the first T-rex."

He was right. Beyond the mouth of the alley, she could make out his motorcycle leaning against a post. "So much for all that traveling," she said.

"It's not so bad," he said. "I think it paid in experience."

Natasha looked back at him. A fresh recollection sprang to her mind: his body warm in her arms, his mouth gentle against hers. She blinked again. "That's right. A whole lot happened, didn't it?"

He looked at her, then lowered his gaze. "I wonder how much time really passed," he said. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet and hesitant. "What do you remember, Natasha?"

"I remember the past two days, whatever they were," she said. "You called me Natalia. I called you—" She stopped, her throat suddenly tight. The anger was back in her heart to make up for the gaps she could feel now in her head. "Idiot. I called you an idiot, sometimes."

His laughter was soft and embarrassed. "Yeah, you did. It's all right, I deserved it."

"What are you going to do now, Barnes?" The name felt all wrong in her mouth, but it was the easiest option right now.

He reached for her shoulder. "First," he said, "I'm going to haul you inside here and make sure you get treatment for your injuries. You can't just walk these off, Nat."

"That's true," she said. "That thing roughed me up pretty bad." He winced. She raised an eyebrow and added, "Still, it's a good thing I was there. It would have kicked your ass alone."

"Yeah," he said, "you're probably right about that."

"You said 'first,'" she said. "What are you going to do after that?"

He paused and said nothing for a few seconds. She tilted her head a little and just looked at him. Finally, he said, "Talk to Daisy—" He shook his head. "My partner. We've got some work to do."

She made a note of the name. "What's that?"

"Well," he said, "that was only a shard of the Time Gem that found me, right?"

"Right," she said.

"So there might be more floating around out there," he said. "Screwing with people's heads and warping time in their vicinity. Well, maybe not everyone's got my issues."

"Everyone's got some issues," she said. "I think you're on the right track there."

"I think so, too," he said. "I don't have to leave them to it alone."

"You wouldn't," she said.

"Enough of that for now, though," he said. "Let's get you taken care of." He gave her a small push towards the mouth of the alleyway.

She protested a little, reflexively. "I can deal with these injuries myself—you should get going. You're supposed to be dead, remember? Don't mess it up."

"I know you can handle it, Nat," he said. "I know. But I want to help."

She stopped long enough to look up at him. His face was too familiar, too welcome a sight to her eyes, even though she wasn't sure why that was the case anymore. "You're not bad at helping," she said, at last.

"No," he agreed, "I'm not. Come on."

She started towards the entrance to the building. He followed at her side, taking hold of her arm to steady her. "You should know," she said, "I won't stop looking."

He glanced down at her. "For what?"

"A way to get my memories back," she said.

He stopped and went still. "You won't?"

"Of course not," she said. "They're mine." She didn't add, _And so are you, James Buchanan Barnes._ It was only a small and irrational part of her heart that said a thing like that, after all. He wasn't hers. They didn't belong to each other; they were their own people. But she wanted him at her side again someday, all the same.

"I—" He caught his breath. "Okay," he said. He wasn't the most eloquent man, but she'd never minded that.

"And then—" She paused.

He looked at her expectantly. "And then what?"

"And then," Natasha said, "a lot of things, I suppose—" So many parts of her hurt right now. Breathing was a little difficult with these fractured ribs, which just made it all the more annoying that her heart was beating so fast. "But first," she said, "I want to see if my cat likes you."

"I'm sure she will," he said. "I'm really charming. Remember?"

"Yes," Natasha said. She leaned a little against his side. "I remember that much."

Side by side, they walked out into the sunlight.


End file.
